


Twisted Dark

by cadkitten



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Angst, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Dream Sex, Fantasizing, M/M, Masturbation, Minor Character Death, Sexual Fantasy, Time Skips, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-23 03:02:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4860548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadkitten/pseuds/cadkitten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A long time ago something happened between Dick and Bruce, something that changed their entire dynamic in a split second. Bruce pushed him away and Dick never could figure out why. Now he knows, now that he can see this all through the differently colored glasses of an adult.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twisted Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Had this horribly fucked idea and just couldn't skip writing it out.  
> Beta Readers: sakura_ame

_His breath caught, his slim fingers sliding up over his chest, groping at his neck for a moment, and then clumsily shoving into his own mouth. Just the tips slid past his teeth, probing at his tongue as his other hand worked frantically. The bed creaked under his slight weight and his breath hitched. His legs spread and his hand moved quicker._

_The door opened and for an instant everything seemed to pause. Dick laid there, his hands still, his eyes wide, his heart beating frantically. Bruce stepped into the room, caught sight of him and turned away, his shoulders stiffening. A muttered apology. A half-formed sentence and then Bruce was retreating._

_"Wait!" Dick grabbed the blankets at his side, pulling them haphazardly over himself, his eyes pleading. Bruce... Batman... it had all blended together for him. He was in suit, but without his mask. He'd clearly come to talk to him about something important. What was it? "What... what did you want to talk about?"_

_Bruce shook his head, staring out into the hallway beyond. "We'll discuss this later."_

_"But-"_

_"No."_

_Dick could almost feel the power of the word, the ability it had to shut him down like nothing else ever had in his life. He closed his mouth and deflated a little. "I'm... sorry," he tried, a little ashamed. He knew he should feel worse about being caught doing what he had, but he really didn't._

_"You have nothing to be sorry for, Dick." The words held a certain finality to them. No room for argument. "I'm the one who is sorry. For not knocking. I should know better."_

_"No, I shouldn't have-"_

_"Stop, Grayson." Bruce's shoulders tensed even more. "We'll talk later."_

_And just like that... he was gone._

Dick rolled over on his bed, his hands pushing up into his hair as he stretched and yawned. These thoughts, they came unbidden to him most of the time. He didn't really call them up on purpose; it just happened. The memory of years before. Maybe it should have been haunting him; perhaps that was the point. But he never looked at it that way. Rather it had only urged him on, pushed him forward in a myriad of ways. It had, perhaps, shaped some of who he'd become... at least in that part of his life.

His back twinged as he moved and he grunted, remembering the swift kick to his back he'd received last night. Work hazards, he supposed. Sometimes Conner had his full envy on that one. Less pain, quicker healing... no mornings after like this. Leaning over, he opened the top drawer and pulled out a small bottle. Tapping out a single pill, he broke it in half and tossed it back, swallowing it down with spit before flopping back on the bed. 

Somewhere on the other side of the wall, he heard a curse and he smirked to himself. Wally was awake, clearly. That meant breakfast soon enough. He reached to rub his eyes with one hand, lightly scratching his stomach with the other. The thoughts came back quickly, this time nearly purposely, morphing into something else entirely.

_Bruce watched him, expressive eyes roving over his exposed body. Dick could already see the start of the other's erection, trapped within his suit._

Of course this was just the fantasy. A very fucked up fantasy, he had to admit. But he'd been beating off to it for years and it was always the go to for a quick release for him. That wasn't about to change, he supposed.

_Bruce was behind him, his suit hanging off of him in the tatters Dick had left it in in his haste trying to get it off. The other's length invading him, again and again. The wet slap of their union echoing in the small room within the Batcave._

Dick groaned, rolling over on his bed, shoving his pillow down under his hips and thrusting between it and his sheets. His legs spread more and he finally grabbed his pajama pants, yanking them down and out of the way. His fingers fisted in the material of the pillow, knuckles turning white as he moved. Arousal gripped him hard and he knew he wasn't going to last.

_Bruce's hand around his cock, coaxing him as he sped up the thrusts. So much pleasure... he was so big inside of him, stretching him. He was trembling and Bruce was moaning._

Three more thrusts and Dick stilled, his body arching and his cock straining. Relief flooded thought him and he breathed out a quiet laugh, hunching over his pillow as he let the excitement of his fantasy drain out of him.

Today was the day... today he would take on a whole new role within the league. Today he'd make Bruce proud of him again.

\-------------------

Dick flattened himself against the wall, barely breathing as another volley of arrows sprayed past him. This suit kept him further in the darkness than his old one had. This suit kept him safer when he tried to blend into the shadows just as his mentor always had. 

He tossed two disks back toward the direction the arrows had come from, calculating trajectory in his head. He heard a cry and then the explosion. He didn't hold the same reserves as his mentor did for the bad guys. No one assumed he did it on purpose and sometimes, maybe he didn't. But sometimes he did. Tonight... he did. This group, they had tortured his mentor nearly to death. They'd bled him and harmed him in unspeakable ways. And Dick wouldn't stand for that.

Darting away from the shadows he'd been concealed in, he raced around the corner, going the opposite direction from the others. He knew... he knew this man's tricks. Let Wally and the rest clean up the mess back there. He had one person he was looking for.

Three blocks later he found the car, the old sedan, abandoned with the door open and the keys in the ignition. He'd be coming back then. The door to the shop in front of him was open and he could hear rummaging inside. Too easy. He climbed into the car and rolled over the seat into the back floorboard. Sliding between the edge of the bench seat and the back of the front seats, he waited.

Maybe a minute later and the seat creaked. He could hear bags going into the passenger seat. And then the door closed and the engine roared to life. Away they went, speeding away from the scene of the crime. He heard the phone call the man made a few miles later, the instruction to kill them all, and he found no regret in his choices. Even as he drew the gun from the concealed pouch of his utility belt, he held no misgivings. This was where he and Batman had always been different. This was the darkness inside that Bruce had once told him about.

They hit a pothole and he cocked the gun, masking the sound. Miles stretched between them and what Nightwing was waiting for. The car finally stopped, the blinker on to turn left. Without a single hesitation, Dick pushed himself up from the floorboard. He gave the man a single second to see who was about to kill him and then he pulled the trigger. Blood sprayed across the windshield, the bullet stopping within the other's brain somewhere. Dark eyes examined the scene, watching as the body slumped forward, this villain never coming back to harm anyone ever again. 

Pushing the door open, Dick slipped away into the night. Not a backward glance, not a single regret. This was what Bruce has warned him about.

\-----------------

Dick sat across the table from nearly half of the league. They were all in costume, though it was a silly ruse, at best. He knew who they all were... he had for years. There were no secret identities for him. Only the person and the mask; the man or woman and the suit. He didn't draw lines between the two and call it a secret; that was silly. Child's play, at best. He never gave it away, but he knew more than most anyone else did about everyone there. The only person he wasn't sure he wasn't outstripped by was Bruce.

His eyes wandered to the older man, watching the way he took control over the situation when things got off-topic, the way he wrangled the others back without really being their leader at all. Another place they differed. He'd taken his role and he'd run with it as Robin. When Bruce had shipped him off to the league, he'd stepped into his role neatly and fully. There was no lying about who knew what to do or who gave orders when they were out on a mission. He'd relinquish when he needed to. Aqualad was, perhaps, the actual leader facing toward the Justice League. But when they were out there, when they were in need of figuring out what to do... Robin did it and he did it without hesitation and without trying to make it look like he wasn't leading.

He pulled at the sleeve of his costume, wondering what Bruce would say if he showed up one day in his street clothes, like he used to as a kid. Robin had been balls-to-the-wall and he was no less so as Nightwing. Only, he'd learned a bit of tact somewhere along the way. Age, perhaps, best defined that. 

His eyes drifted to Bruce again and he found the other watching him. Their eyes met and Dick could feel the surge of energy that came with it. Images came, unbidden, and he simply let them now. Once upon a time, he would have crushed them down, forced them to wait until later. But now, he let them swarm his mind, clouding everything as they regarded one another.

_Bruce's mouth hot against his own, his hands on his wrists as he backed him up against the wall._

Dick slowly slid his tongue over his lower lip, his blood coming to a low boil as he let himself get carried away. Right here... right in front of all the others. 

_Bruce on the table, Dick on his knees over him, their movements in unison, pleasure expressed so completely it was obvious, even under that mask._

He could feel himself getting hard. It would be so obvious in this costume. He didn't care in the slightest.

\---------------

Dick sat hunched over the computer terminal in his room, fingers tapping away at the keys determination written all over his face. He had to know. It was now or it was never and he _had_ to know.

It had dawned on him that he held a million pieces of the puzzle between him and Bruce, but never all of them. Here he was now, seven years past what he had come to think of as 'the incident' and only now thinking of what all the repercussions had been. Bruce relegating him to the league less than a week later. He'd thought coincidence... but had it been? Bruce never once calling him by his first name again after that night. He'd thought it had been a quirk... but had it been?

Another hour's work and he finally broke past Bruce's security... security he'd helped set up. That was the only reason he was in, wasn't it? Because he knew that code inside and out. Because he'd birthed that code and breathed life into it time and again.

Pulling up the security feeds on the premises, he searched until he found his old room. Every room in the house had one. Paranoia paid off when you were a superhero and Bruce had paranoia in spades. They had code to tip them off if anyone who didn't belong there entered the place so the records didn't need reviewing, but hell if he didn't know Bruce was meticulous enough he'd archive for ages. Hell... he had the money.

Ripping through the files, he found the right year and began the search backwards from the time of year he knew he'd left to come here. Another hour and finally he found the day he was looking for. He hit play and sat back, watching as his thirteen year old self finished building something on the desk. What had it been? He wracked his brain, squinting at the project and then smiling. Ah yes... power generator to put under the waterfall. Save the rich man some money; ever the frugal little boy wonder he'd been.

Fast-forwarding, he waited until he'd gone from the room to clean up for the night and then hit play. A few minutes later he came back in and put some things away and then lay down for the evening. Not long after, he watched his younger self strip and start to pleasure himself. Curiosity kept him watching himself more than anything. The fumbling of a barely teenager finding himself; the desperation of someone still new to the workings of their body... it was all so decidedly innocent and yet heated. He could remember those moments, the situations in which he had wanted nothing more than to obtain his orgasm, but was still too clumsy to draw it out quickly. He'd already done it in the shower that night, but it simply hadn't been enough. His body had burned for more, ached to obtain something else. One more release, one more pleasure.

The door opened and Dick sat forward, watching carefully. Bruce took two steps in and opened his mouth to say something. He turned around toward the camera... and Dick's world fell apart. He hit the space bar and stared at that face; the pain, the fear, the agony written there. He saw regret and he saw anger. He tapped the space bar again and listened as Bruce breathed out a barely audible, "Oh shit..." his eyes closing a second later, his entire body tensed up.

The rest of the scene played out pretty much as he'd always remembered; but that... that changed everything. He'd always assumed Bruce had been horrified at what he'd seen, maybe even traumatized by the other's nudity and his compromising position. Despite the fact that it'd gotten his rocks off for years to think he'd enjoyed it, he'd never really _believed_ it. But that look... that look had been of a man whose world had been turned upside down in the matter of an instant. And the angle Bruce had gotten on the whole subject hadn't been subtle. He'd had his legs spread open and the proverbial world on display for the older man.

Sitting back, he watched it again, not pausing it this time. And this time he let it go until Bruce had gone and the door had been shut and he watched himself kneel in front of the door and go after himself like no tomorrow. That moment had been defining for both of them, only in completely different ways. He'd found something that turned him on a godawful amount... and well... so had Bruce. Only for Dick, it was okay and for Bruce, it was possibly the worst case scenario.

He set up some search parameters and drew up a program to go through and delete all the videos until he'd been of age. No point in making this worse on Bruce once he came to him about it, right? But... then... had his mentor... no, he wouldn't have. He pulled aside that search program, not letting it run yet, and created a new one. This one searched for any videos from the bathroom or from his bedroom that had been watched before and how many times they'd been watched and when. He sent it off and it came back with only three results. Pulling them up, he found the one he'd just been viewing and only the timestamps of himself seeing it. So Bruce hadn't gone back to watch it, then. That... was something.

The next one was from the bathroom and he slid the bar along through it, running it quick. The time stamps were from a few years ago. The wall exploded in and someone stepped out of the rubble. Okay, there was a good reason for watching that. He closed it and pulled up the other one from his bedroom. One timestamp, the day after it had been recorded. He scrolled through slowly, maybe 20x speed. It was him packing up his room and preparing to leave. He almost stopped it once he'd gone, but there had to be a reason someone had watched it. He kept going and hours later the door opened and Bruce walked in. He sat on the bed and placed his hand on the pillow, looking away from the camera. Dick let the slider go and the audio started. For a long time he heard nothing and then, finally, a quietly broken, "I'm so sorry... but you had to go. I had to let you go."

The rest of the time Bruce spent in the room was punctuated by silence, only the sound of his breathing and the occasional quiet hitch in it.

Dick shut off the feed, letting the other parameter run for a few minutes as he just stared at the screen. The pieces started to fall into place. Bruce had sent him away on purpose... sent him away because of that night. They'd been Batman and Robin, sidekick and superhero, the unstoppable combination of brains and strength, agility and determination. And then they'd been just Batman... and just Robin. He'd been pushed out, cast away. 

Bruce had never called him by his first name again after that night. He'd very deliberately only called him Grayson or Robin or Nightwing. Never Dick. The look on Bruce's face came back to him and he closed his eyes, letting it all sink in. It had affected him, much as it had affected Dick himself. Of that much he was utterly certain now. That one moment, that half a second at best had shaped how Bruce had treated him ever since. Even now that he was older, the other only saw that boy, that vulnerable and impressionable and horribly desperate boy.

For a few minutes, he just sat and thought about it, his arms crossed as he watched the search bar creep along, deleting in its path, erasing behind it with multiple layers of a wipe program. At long last it flashed 100% across the screen and he swiped the program away, quickly calling up a date he knew too well. Two months prior, a night he'd crashed there because he hadn't had anywhere else to go that night. He'd been in enough pain to cause him to limp and he'd crashed his bike to bits. Lucky it'd only been a limp, truth be told. 

He found the video of that night in his old bedroom. His body was too big for the tiny bed, something Bruce had never replaced, perhaps telling more in that than in anything else that he still saw him as a child. The video displayed him as he stripped off his suit and fell into the bed. Calling up the memory, he remembered the three pain pills he'd taken nearly twenty minutes before that; the sort he didn't like to use often but sometimes the pain was too great to ignore.

On film, he drifted off to sleep and Dick took the slider bar, carefully dragging it along to get him through a few hours of restless sleep, all utterly naked and completely on top of the covers on the bed. It was like he'd been asking for it... and really, now that he thought about it, he had been. He'd wanted Bruce to open that door and find him like this, to see he wasn't a kid anymore. Maybe he should have been ashamed at himself, but he still felt nothing besides vague amusement at his idiocy.

He watched himself flop over from side to side over the few hours and finally onto his belly. There, he let the slider go and the audio crackled back to life. Soft snoring and then a hitch in it and a low groan. His hips moved and then began grinding. Still so typical... predictable; his body like clockwork it was so easy to know what would happen from a simple switch in position. There was really only one thing he'd do on his stomach and it wasn't sleeping and his body knew that.

Soon enough, he could see himself arch up and his hand slide under himself, grasping his cock and starting to jack off. He closed his eyes, leaning back and just listening for it. The culmination of moans, the panting of his breath, his arousal growing higher and higher... and then, it happened. That name slipped off of his lips; the only name he could have ever called while he was there, alone in his old room with such thoughts. It came again and again, whimpered and breathed and nearly sobbed out. And then the choking, wrenching version of it as he lost it. He moved closer to the speakers, knowing this part would be hard to catch, knowing he'd only whispered it. 

_"You'll never know, will you?" A small groan and then a sigh. "I've wanted you all along."_

Dick hit the pause and noted the time. Pulling up a video and audio ripper, he shoved in the path to the video and the start and end times that mattered. Pulling down the chunk of video, he set to editing two versions of it. One, containing everything, even the time stamps, he shoved onto a USB drive and the other - only audio - he uploaded into Bruce's main files, labeled **Robin's - leave me alone** and leaving it there. He used his place as a dropzone sometimes, so it wouldn't be surprising and as far as he'd ever been able to tell, Bruce never snuck around in his files.

Breathing out a soft sigh, he shut everything down and moved to change into his street clothing. A simple t-shirt, jeans, and a hoodie. Sunglasses perched on his head despite it being the middle of the night. He pushed the USB drive into his pocket and snatched up his keys to the new bike Bruce had bestowed upon him. It was well past time for a visit and right now, he had a driving need to get to the bottom of this.

Stepping into the hall, he made his way down the corridor, pausing only when he heard Wally's voice from the kitchen. He paused, watching him fiddle with the oven and rolled his eyes, detouring into the room and carefully resetting the oven right along behind the other. He patted his friend on the shoulder. "That was way too high for cookies, man."

Wally smiled at him, his eyes bright and his happiness evident. He squeezed his shoulder and then slipped past him, heading straight for his bike. Once on it and out of the compound it was easy going. All the customizations meant the bike fit him like a second skin, knowing his commands nearly before he thought them. He had to admit, Bruce was damn good at tech, he always had been. Just like Dick was good at hand-to-hand in a way Bruce had not foreseen, Bruce was amazing with his hands in a whole other realm. 

He zipped through the night, the sunglasses snug down over his face to stop the wind, his hoodie cutting some of the wind that kept trying to rip his breath from his lungs. Soon enough, he found himself at the cave, navigating the way in and pausing just long enough for the systems to recognize him and let him in without anguish. He stopped on the main platform and dismounted, shoving his glasses up on his head and adjusting his clothing before he made his way up the stairs and toward Bruce's mainframe. 

As he'd thought he would, he found Bruce sitting there and two steaming mugs on a tray beside him, telling him Alfred had already been told he was on the way. It didn't surprise him Bruce kept tabs on him, it never had. How much was another question entirely. Would he know why Dick was here or would he be blindsided by all of it? In truth, he sort of hoped the second was the truth. Coming to stand next to the terminal, he pushed his hands into his jean's pockets and waited on Bruce to finish what he was doing.

Bruce turned around less than a minute later and looked up at him, the small hints of that strained smile he'd always given Dick appeared. Or had it always been that strained? Maybe it hadn't... maybe it only had been since the incident. Or maybe he was fooling himself into thinking this was their only problem. 

Before the other could speak, Dick took the floor. He cleared his throat and just spit it out. "I need to talk to you about something and I need you to hear me out completely before you say a thing." Their eyes met and he allowed the next piece out. "Please."

Bruce gave him a simple nod, reaching to pick up his mug from the tray, taking a sip of the hot liquid. Tea, presumably. Dick glanced at his own cup, seeing the remnants of dissolved marshmallows. Not that he minded hot chocolate, but it was just one more thing to tell him Bruce never let himself realize his little Robin was all grown up. He'd always been grown up in his mind, but now... now he really, legally, was. And yet, Bruce still didn't see it that way.

He pushed his hands deeper into his pockets, regarding the floor as he searched on how to say this. How _did_ you start a conversation with your mentor and basically damn near stand-in family about that one time you got caught jacking off as a kid? It was awkward subject matter to say the least. Finally, he pulled his hands free of his jeans and crossed his arms over his chest, drawing up his stance to his full height. Best look the part, then.

"So... there's this thing that's been bothering me for a while now." Which thing did he want to bring up? Which one was it that bothered him more than anything? Realization struck him and he lifted his head to look back at the older man again. Determination blazed within him. "Why did you push me away?"

Bruce stared at him, shock clearly in his gaze, though his face remained passive. And he realized he'd not set the parameters for a discussion and Bruce was honoring his agreement. 

With a sigh, he shook his head a little. "I mean... you shoved me away and I can finally pinpoint the exact half a second that it happened. On some level, I get that... I get why your gut reaction was to shove me away. But on another... I don't understand why it stayed like that, even after you shipped me off." He huffed out a humorless laugh. "Promoted, you said. Ready to strike out with a team, you said. But you didn't mean any of that... it was just a surprise when it all worked out, wasn't it?" He watched the emotions warring in Bruce's gaze as he spoke, finding the truth within it as he'd always done with both Batman and with Bruce Wayne. He'd learned to read him in the field and it had just bled over into the rest of their lives, easy to transfer.

He let it hang in the air for a minute, his eyes finding the cup on the platter again, not ready to stare him down while he talked about the rest of this. "I was just a kid back then, Bruce... I needed you in my life. You were the only stable part of it and then you shoved me out of the boat into the ocean. It worked out well enough in the end, but you were my lifeline and then... you weren't, you know?" He swallowed back the emotions that threatened to tumble out with the admission. "I couldn't understand it back then. I thought for sure this was just your way of rewarding me for a job well done, though it seemed an odd one. Push me out of your life and tell me I was ready for the big leagues... sort of. And I lived up to everything and exceeded it, didn't I? I took my place and I've never given it up, I've never wavered and I've never left."

Dick shifted to let one hand come to rest on the desk, the other with the thumb hooked through his belt loop, his eyes on the floor directly in front of Bruce's feet. He still wore the boots... he'd just come back in from a run... maybe he'd just come in for Dick, seeing he was on his way here. He still ran to him... for him... but he wouldn't ever let it be caught on that he did. Except, he'd slipped up this time. Or maybe he always did and Dick just never noticed.

He looked back up at his face, finding pain etched there that he hasn't expected; thick and breathtaking in the agony of it. No mask could have hidden it, the emotional wounds too strong. He had to look away to continue.

"But that's not even it... I ask you why you pushed me away... but what I really want to know is something else completely. See, I finally put the pieces together, after all these years. The way you treated me changed on a dime. The way you reacted to me altered after a specific incident. And it's that that I want to talk to you about. That's why I'm here."

"Don't." The word came out nearly strangled, the ache of a pain so deep it cracked Bruce's voice as he freed the plea into the air.

"I _have_ to... you have to understand and _I_ have to understand." Dick flicked his gaze back up and then away again when he found the same look he'd seen in the camera reflected there. This was harder than it had to be, more painful than it needed to be. But it was what it was and it would happen regardless. 

"I know it was the night that you walked in on me. That's where everything changed for you, wasn't it?" He could hear the way Bruce's breath caught and then sped up. That bore the truth more than he wanted it to. "But what I don't understand is _why_?" He met his gaze head-on, his own brand of anger fastened upon Bruce now. "You didn't _do_ anything wrong, Bruce. Neither did I. It was an honest mistake. I didn't lock the door and you didn't knock. That's life and sometimes life is just rude like that." He could feel his temper raising and he didn't do a damn thing to stop it this time. "Anyone else would have just discarded it, but you didn't. You kicked me out of your life instead. And you know what? I didn't deserve any piece of that!"

"You don't understand," Bruce offered, his voice weak, his entire demeanor not at all what Dick was used to seeing. So fragile... so broken. This was the boy who stood over his broken parents in the alley behind the theater. This was the broken man who drove person after person from his life in fear of their own lives at cost of his own heart. This was... madness.

"No, I understand just fine. I understand that you _liked_ what you saw and that in the whole half second - and I watched it Bruce, I counted it - that your life broke down in front of you. Our worlds both changed in that half second and neither one of us could see that for the other. I see yours now... I see your pain, I see your anger at yourself, I see your frustration at your own mind and body. But you know what? You never _acted_ on anything."

"That doesn't matter!" Bruce was angry now, the rolling waves of the storm that he could become taking hold in a matter of seconds. Dick watched it mount and grow, stood there, nearly passive as he watched the incoming rage. "That's never been what mattered. What I thought, what I saw, it was all wrong. In that half a second I became no better than any of the criminals we hunt, Grayson, and you damn well know it."

"Dick..." he raised his eyes, locking his own with Bruce's, pain and frustration in his own. "My goddamned name is Dick. You used to use it once in a while. Before that... before that night you decided you're the damn symbol of all that's wrong in the world. I know why now... I see that, too. You wanted to distance us in every way you could, so you chose that one within minutes of it happening, didn't you? I heard it... I hear it in my mind all the damn time. The way you called me my name for the last time." His voice raised as he spoke. "But you never considered the other side of this, did you? You never thought about how any of this affected me!"

He leaned over the terminal and brought up the main file folder, jamming the proper keys to open the audio file. The speakers crackled to life and then the moans started. He watched Bruce's face morph from angry to surprised to horrified and when his hand shot out to try to stop it, Dick knocked it away. "Don't... leave it. This is my floor right now. Just do yourself a damn favor and listen."

The moans continued, the whimpers, and then Dick's voice moaning out Bruce's name. The older man paled and Dick took pity on him, hitting pause and rocking back on his heels. "Just... listen to me for a damn minute." Bruce closed his eyes and Dick plunged forward. "That night changed both of us... it taught me a whole new thing that got me off. It showed me I enjoyed being caught... something that's never happened again. But you know something? That recording... that was from the last time I slept here. Just a few months ago. Exhausted and beaten to hell and I still had it in me to dredge up the one fantasy that's always done it for me. Bruce, I w-"

"I've ruined you." Bruce slumped forward in his chair, his elbows on his knees, his hands over his face. "My actions tainted you for life and I can't take that back. Dick, I've... I've regretted so much in my life, but never anything more than this. There's blood on my hands, there's people I couldn’t save and people I've killed without meaning to... and so many things I've done that I'm not proud of. But when I recount my sins and I look at my life, this is the one thing that I'd have done anything to reverse."

"But you didn't _do_ anything... don't you see? Nothing. You never touched me, you never even watched the videos... believe me, I checked when I figured it out. Bruce, you're blameless here!"

The anger rose to the surface faster than Dick expected. Rage filled Bruce's face as he lifted his head to stare at the other. "Nothing? You think you know everything, but you don't. You never have. I caught myself thinking about what I saw again and again." His words were being nearly spit out now, hatred turning them ugly as they left his lips. "I even lost myself in drink and gave in a few times over the years. It's an ugly thing and just because I never touched you doesn't make me any less of a pedophile, Robin."

"Nightwing..." Dick closed his eyes and turned his head away. "I'm not a damn kid anymore. I'm not the boy who needs your hot chocolate or your pity. I'm not thirteen and in case you didn't notice, it's been almost seven years since that night." He looked back at Bruce, his own barriers torn down to show him everything. "Damn it, Bruce! You never could see it, could you? I grew up and you folded in on yourself. I'm a _man_ now. The person standing here in front of you... the person who came to confront you about this isn't the kid involved in this anymore! Yeah, I get it... trust me, I fucking get it, okay? You saw a thirteen year old boy in a compromising position and you found yourself helplessly aroused by it. And you saw this boy as nearly your son and that fucking hurt you." His voice was gentler now, easing up to show he really did care about what he was presenting here. "I love you, Bruce... it was impossible not to. The man who took me under his wing, who showed me the world. You gave me so many things I'd never have had any other way. And I get it..." he let it pause there for a moment, squeezing his eyes shut to stop the emotions that wanted out.

Taking an unsteady breath he offered, "But I'm not your son. I never have been. And when you saw me that night, I wasn't your son. You loved me, didn't you? And if you loved me then there was an emotional connection there and your brain used that against you when you saw me, naked and utterly vulnerable... all flushed skin and desperation. All your brain and your hormones saw was someone you cared about, that you're not related to, in a sexual context. It's biological, Bruce. We're not wired to understand age or any factor like that. We're wired to react to hormones, to react to scenes that excite us. And clearly men excite you. So yeah... maybe society doesn't see it as okay, maybe you can't even see it as okay, but I need you to hear me when I tell you this."

He knelt down and looked up into Bruce's eyes. "You never did a thing wrong to me in that regard, okay? I'm not some damaged goods that you fucked up. I'm an adult with needs and desires and emotions of all my own. And, yeah, I think about you with some of them, but that's hardly surprising. I worked side-by-side with you for years. I saw you... and still do... as this paragon of hope. You gave me the damn world, Bruce... how did you think that would end? Of course I think about you like that. And it just was coincidence that you showed me something else I found to be a huge turn-on. But, damn it... you _never_ did anything wrong to me."

Bruce was quiet for a moment, his eyes holding more pain than Dick thought he'd ever seen there before. And when the tears glimmered there, it stole his breath away. "I bought a gun, Grayson. And you know how I feel about guns." He was quiet for long enough Dick almost spoke, but then he continued, his voice shaking, his words nearly a whisper. "There've been nights where I told myself the world was better off without the one fighting for it being some of the garbage that needed to be taken out. Nights where I sat with that gun in hand and tried to summon the courage to do what I knew I needed to. I almost found what I needed to do it once. Only once. And the world would have none of it. Irony... coincidence... or maybe fate... but it was you that stopped me."

Their eyes met again and Bruce's breath caught for a second and then gasped inward. "It's the only time I've ever lied to you. Everything else I've ever told you, it's been the truth as I've seen it. You were ready for more than just being here. You were ready to lead others to success and to help the world in your own way. I may have pushed you away for my own demons, but you went on to do a damn good job... Dick."

Kneeling there, Dick gazed up into Bruce's face, finding that even with the other in such a vulnerable state, even with the admission on his lips of what he'd nearly done because of that night... it changed nothing about how Dick felt toward him. He could still feel the swarming turmoil of being so close and yet so far away. He could still sense the utter desire in his own mind and body to simply act and react rather than rationalize and pause. Reaching up, he gently trailed his fingertips along Bruce's jaw, surprised when he didn't push him away. "I'll be as blunt as I can be." His voice was soft, filled with a tenderness he wasn't even sure he had any idea where it came from. "You mean everything to me. You always have. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't want so much more from you. It's not just a fantasy... it's what I've desired for years." He pushed himself up and dug into his pocket, pulling out the USB drive and sliding it onto the desk in front of the other. "I won't lead you into it under false pretenses. It's graphic... but it's the truth of it. That night, I slept in that bed again and I couldn't even dream of anything other than you. Call it fucked up, call it what you will. But I'm nearly twenty and I can make my own decisions now."

He turned away and then paused a few steps toward his bike. Glancing back over his shoulder, he found Bruce watching him, his face looking older now, but less haunted than he'd seen it in years. "If you want something to feel like you lost me on... I have a hundred things worse than any of this you could dwell on. I've violated your cardinal rule more times than you know... usually by accident, but there have been times when I've done it on purpose. I've rid the world of the scum and I've been both judge and jury to them on more than one occasion. I've broken into more things than I've patched up and I've felt no remorse for most all of it. If there's a path you want to walk, a game you want to play where something went wrong with me... those are the ones you should be looking at. Not this one." He gave him a small smile. "Never this one, Bats... never this one."

Even as he left the cave, he could feel the air clearing, the tension of seven years fading. He'd given him something else to focus on and he'd given him a clearer conscience regarding what he had - or maybe hadn't - done that night. And he'd freed his own secrets at the same time. The air whipped around him, the roar of wind in his ears as he sped through Gotham relaxing him, easing him into the lullaby he chose most nights. But tonight it brought with it a new glow, an ember of hope and the burn of a new tomorrow. Maybe it would be worse, maybe it would be better. Perhaps it would hold the world for him; perhaps it wouldn't. But either way, it was better than the darkness they'd both been harboring. This... this was freedom. And this was what they were fighting for.


End file.
